The Honourable John Wingfield of the Guards, who died of a fever at Coimbra (May 14, 1811). I had known him ten in, the better half of his life, and the happiest part of mine. 1. Le short space of one month I have lost her who gave me g, and most of those who had made that being tolerable. To me the lines of Young are no fiction:

*Insatiate archer! could not one suffice?

Thy shaft flew thrice, and thrice my peace was slain,
And thrice ere thrice yon moon had fill'd her horn.'

I should have ventured a verse to the memory of the late Charles Skinner Matthews, Fellow of Downing College, Camwere he not too much above all praise of mine. His Lowers of mind, shown in the attainment of greater honours, At the ablest candidates, than those of any graduate on record at Cambridge, have sufficiently established his fame on spot where it was acquired; while his softer qualities live the recollection of friends who loved him too well to envy Le superiority.

Part of the Acropolis was destroyed by the explosion of a Base during the Venetian siege.

We can all feel, or imagine, the regret with which the ruins efcities, once the capitals of empires, are beheld: the reflectres suggested by such objects are too trite to require recapi But never did the littleness of man, and the vanity is very best virtues, of patriotism to exalt, and of valour to dead his country, appear more conspicuous than in the re

II.

Ancient of days! august Athena! where, Where are thy men of might? thy grand in soul? [things that were: Gone - glimmering through the dream of First in the race that led to Glory's goal, They won, and pass'd away—is this the whole?

A schoolboy's tale, the wonder of an hour! The warrior's weapon and the sophist's stole Are sought in vain, and o'er each mouldering tower, [of power. Dim with the mist of years, grey flits the shade

The

cord of what Athens was, and the certainty of what she now
is. This theatre of contention between mighty factions, of the
struggles of orators, the exaltation and deposition of tyrants,
the triumph and punishment of generals, is now become a
scene of petty intrigue and perpetual disturbance, between
the bickering agents of certain British nobility and gentry.
The wild foxes, the owls, and serpents in the ruins of Baby-
ton, were surely less degrading than such inhabitants.
Turks have the plea of conquest for their tyranny, and the
Greeks have only suffered the fortune of war, incidental to the
bravest; but how are the mighty fallen, when two painters
contest the privilege of plundering the Parthenon, and triumph
in turn, according to the tenor of each succeeding firman!
Sylla could but punish, Philip subdue, and Xerxes burn
Athens; but it remained for the paltry antiquarian, and his
despicable agents, to render her contemptible as himself and
his pursuits. The Parthenon, before its destruction, in part,
by fire during the Venetian siege, had been a temple, a church,
and a mosque. In each point of view it is an object of regard:
it changed its worshippers; but still it was a place of worship
thrice sacred to devotion: its violation is a triple sacrifice.
But-
'Man, proud man,

Drest in a little brief authority,
Plays such fantastic tricks before high Heaven
As make the angels weep.'

I cannot resist availing myself of the permission of my friend Dr Clarke, whose name requires no comment with the pable, but whose sanction will add tenfold weight to my testiBay, to insert the following extract from a very obliging letter Chito me, as a note to the above lines:- When the last of the Metopes was taken from the Parthenon, and, in moving of great part of the superstructure with one of the triglyphs was thrown down by the workmen whom Lord Elgin empiged, the Disdar, who beheld the mischief done to the balding, took his pipe from his mouth, dropped a tear, and, in a supplicating tone of voice, said to Lusieri, Téλos-1 was

Blow! swiftly blow, thou keel-compelling gale!
Till the broad sun withdraws his lessening ray;
Then must the pennant-bearer slacken sail,
That lagging barks may make their lazy way.
Ah! grievance sore, and listless dull delay,
To waste
on sluggish hulks the sweetest

breeze What leagues are lost, before the dawn of day, Thus loitering pensive on the willing seas,

Isdar.

+ According to Zosimus, Minerva and Achilles frightened Alaric from the Acropolis; but others relate that the Gothic kg was nearly as mischievous as the Scottish peer.-See Chandler.

like these!

• To prevent blocks and splinters falling during action.

XXI.

The moon is up; by Heaven, a lovely eve! Long streams of light o'er dancing waves expand; [lieve:

Now lads on shore may sigh, and maids beSuch be our fate when we return to land! Meantime some rude Arion's restless hand Wakes the brisk harmony that sailors love; A circle there of merry listeners stand, Or to some well-known measure featly move, Thoughtless, as if on shore they still were free

to rove.

XXII.

Through Calpe's straits survey the steepy shore,

Europe and Afric on each other gaze!
Lands of the dark-eyed Maid and dusky Moor
Alike beheld beneath pale Hecate's blaze:
How softly on the Spanish shore she plays,
Disclosing rock, and slope, and forest brown,
Distinct, though darkening with her waning
phase;

But Mauritania's giant shadows frown, From mountain-cliff to coast descending sombre down.

XXIII.

'Tis night, when Meditation bids us feel We once have loved, though love is at an end: The heart, lone mourner of its baffled zeal, Though friendless now, will dream it had a friend. [bend,

Who with the weight of years would wish to When Youth itself survives young Love and Joy?

Alas! when mingling souls forget to blend, Death hath but little left him to destroy! Ah! happy years! once more who would not be a boy?

XXIV.

Thus bending o'er the vessel's laving side, To gaze on Dian's wave-reflected sphere, The soul forgets her schemes of hope and pride, [year. And flies unconscious o'er each backward None are so desolate but something dear, Dearer than self, possesses or possess'd A thought, and claims the homage of a tear; A flashing pang! of which the weary breast Would still, albeit in vain, the heavy heart divest.

XXV.

To sit on rocks, to muse o'er flood and fell, To slowly trace the forest's shady scene, Where things that own not man's dominion dwell,

And mortal foot hath ne'er or rarely been ; To climb the trackless mountain all unseen, With the wild flock that never needs a fold; Alone o'er steeps and foaming falls to lean; This is not solitude; 'tis but to hold Converse with Nature's charms, and view her stores unroll'd.

XXVI.

But midst the crowd, the hum, the shock of men,

To hear, to see, to feel, and to possess,
And roam along, the world's tired denizen,
With none who bless us, none whom we can
bless;

Minions of splendour shrinking from distress! None that, with kindred consciousness endued, If we were not, would seem to smile the less. Of all that flatter'd, follow'd, sought, and sued; This is to be alone; this, this is solitude!

XXVII.

More blest the life of godly eremite, Such as on lonely Athos may be seen, Watching at eve upon the giant height, Which looks o'er waves so blue, skies so serene, That he who there at such an hour hath been Will wistful linger on that hallow'd spot; Then slowly tear him from the 'witching scene, Sigh forth one wish that such had been his lot, Then turn to hate a world he had almost forgot.

XXVIII.

Pass we the long, unvarying course, the track Oft trod, that never leaves a trace behind; Pass we the calm, the gale, the change, the tack, [wind: And each well-known caprice of wave and Pass we the joys and sorrows sailors find, Coop'd in their winged sea-girt citadel; The foul, the fair, the contrary, the kind, As breezes rise and fall and billows swell, Till on some jocuad morn-lo, land! and all is well.

XXIX.

But not in silence pass Calypso's isles,
The sister tenants of the middle deep;
There for the weary still a haven smiles,
Though the fair goddess long hath ceased to
weep,

And o'er her cliffs a fruitless watch to keep For him who dared prefer a mortal bride: Here, too, his boy essay'd the dreadful leap Stern Mentor urged from high to yonder tide. While thus of both bereft, the nymph-queen doubly sigh'd.

XXX.

Her reign is past, her gentle glories gone: But trust not this: too easy youth, beware! A mortal sovereign holds her dangerous throne,

And thou mayst find a new Calypso there. Sweet Florence! could another ever share This wayward, loveless heart, it would be thine:

But check'd by every tie, I may not dare To cast a worthless offering at thy shrine. Nor ask so dear a breast to feel one pang for mine.

"Tis an old lesson: Time approves it true,
And those who know it best deplore it most;
When all is won that all desire to woo,
The paltry prize is hardly worth the cost :
Youth wasted, minds degraded, honour lost,
These are thy fruits, successful Passion! these!
If, kindly cruel, early Hope is crost,
Sall to the last it rankles, a disease,

XXXVI.

See a long characteristic Note by Lord Byron at the end of the volume. † Ithaca.

Leucadia, now Santa Maura. From the promontory (the Lover's Leap) Sappho is said to have thrown herself. $ Actium and Trafalgar need no further mention.

The

please.

known, was fought in the gulf of Patras. Here the author of Don Quixote lost his left hand.